


Stupid

by StoriwrYNos



Category: Hit the Floor (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Crime Family AU, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Mush, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Jude, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Mushy, Physical Abuse, Protective Zero, might be a second chapter, young zude, young zude au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-18 00:40:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16107125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StoriwrYNos/pseuds/StoriwrYNos
Summary: Zero comes back from prison to find that his boss, Oscar Kinkade, has continued to take his problems out on his son Jude, who just happens to mean quite a lot to Zero.





	Stupid

**Author's Note:**

> I miss Jude and Zero.

“Why’s he limping?” 

Zero’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as he watched Jude make his slow and painful way across the garage. At Zero’s question, Derek rolled out from under the car he had been trying to fix and cocked his eyebrow sarcastically. 

“Why do you think he’s limping?” Met with such sarcasm, Zero would normally offer Derek a scathing look followed by a witty remark of his own, but this morning he couldn’t take his eyes off Jude whose every step looked like an enormous effort. 

“You know what I mean. What happened this time?” It was only once Jude had disappeared around the corner that Zero turned back to Derek and asked his question. This time, Derek sighed uneasily and sat up, leaning against the body of the car he had been working on. At this reaction, Zero became even more suspicious. Derek had been working for the Kinkade family long enough to have become desensitised to Oscar’s treatment of his son come human punching bag so something bad must have happened. 

“Oscar had been lining up a big deal, and then the day everything was meant to be signed it fell through. Jude happened to be walking up the stairs at the wrong time.” 

“Oscar pushed him down the stairs?!” Zero didn’t know why he was shocked. After everything Oscar had done to Jude, pushing him down the stairs was hardly an unbelievable twist to the story. Nevertheless, it made Zero rage inside that someone could do that to their own son, that someone could do it to Jude.  
In answer, Derek smiled ruefully and shook his head, looking towards where Jude had disappeared out of the big room. 

“Yeah. Then kicked him a few good times.” He paused for a minute and a far off look entered his eyes as if he was reliving the memories of that day. “They think the limp might be permanent.” This tossed in like a side detail, like it didn’t even matter. It mattered. Zero exploded. 

“Permanent!” His shout filled the garage. At another time he might have worried about Oscar hearing him but not today. “He’s given him a permanent limp! I should kill him.” At his sides, Zero’s hands bunched into fists that shook with anger. Derek let out a sour chuckle. 

“Right.” He offered, sarcasm back. With his anger still at full boil Zero turned ready to shout at him but Derek’s resigned look stopped him. In the end Derek was right, really. Oscar had been hurting Jude since long before he had taken Zero in to work as his drug handler, he had been hurting Jude the whole time Zero had been living in their big mansion with them, and Zero had never done anything. Had never done anything because Oscar was too big a fish, was too rich, too sweet talking, too dangerous. Had never done anything because unless he actually killed Oscar – and Zero wasn’t sure he could ever kill anyone despite his juvie rep and hatred towards the Kinkade patriarch – anything he did manage to do would just make the next day worse for Jude. No, Derek was right. 

With this knowledge burning through him, Zero huffed away from Derek towards his small bedroom next the garage. As he stormed past Oscar’s countless cars he tried to coax his fingers from their clenched position and stretched out his palms. It was times like this he did stupid things that got him locked up, times when he couldn’t take his anger out on the person or thing that was causing it so took it out on something else. Something like his basketball coach’s car. 

Even trying to supress his rage, Zero couldn’t help but shove his bedroom door open so hard it slammed into the wall. 

“Holy crap!” Following the bang of the door came a voice Zero would have recognised anywhere and it caused the red haze in front of his eyes to clear immediately revealing Jude standing at the side of his bed like he had just jumped up off it. 

Jude. As he closed the door without turning around, Zero took in the boy who was standing in front of him. Tall, brunette, eyes that held the weight of the world, skin that Zero ached to…anyway. Looking Jude up and down Zero couldn’t see any other bruises which meant the stairs incident had happened a while ago. Following his train of thought, Zero hesitantly looked down at Jude’s legs as he imagined them to look completely different now that Jude had a permanent limp. Of course they didn’t. Zero didn’t need telling that the invisible wounds were often the deepest. 

“Take a picture, it will last longer.” As Jude spoke, Zero’s attention snapped back up to his beautiful face which, despite the snarky comment, betrayed Jude’s deep rooted fatigue. 

“I know, I have one in my wallet.” It was true but Zero wasn’t sure what had made him confess in that moment. The truth was that he had had a Polaroid photo of him and Jude in his wallet for about six months, and he had carried it with him every day he had spent inside, but he had not planned to tell Jude that. 

For his part, Jude looked as surprised as Zero at the admission and for a minute they avoided each other’s eyes in shock. Finally, seemingly finding it too painful to stay standing, Jude half fell half staggered back into a sitting position on the bed. Watching his careful, painful movements, Zero couldn’t help his mouth from running away from him again. 

“I missed you.” Half of Zero hated himself for being so transparent and soppy but the other part just needed to open up to Jude. He had been locked away for three months and there hadn’t been a day when he didn’t think about Jude; what he was up to, whether he was ok, if maybe, just maybe, Jude was thinking about him too. 

Jude looked up through his slightly curled hair shaking his head gently. 

“Right.” Something about the way he said the word sounded familiar to Zero and it made him want to put up all of his defences again. Suddenly it hit him. Jude’s tone was exactly the same as Derek’s had been earlier. Scathing. Disbelieving. Looking down at Jude, whose breathing was still ragged from the effort of sitting down on the bed, Zero knew Jude’s tone had nothing to do with him, and had everything to do with the one man who rightfully should have loved Jude and who only abused him. 

“Every day.” Zero continued his confession, making his way to the bed. “I looked at your picture, and I thought that if I could just last today and then tomorrow and the day after and all the weeks that followed, that I could see you again. You kept me going.” With this assertion, Zero sat down on the bed next to Jude, close but not touching. 

For a moment they were both quiet as they processed Zero’s words. Normally they weren’t good at talking. They were all starving mouths and seeking hands and desperate touch. The feelings behind the actions were implicit but not spoken aloud. Zero was changing the game. 

“I wanted to come visit you but I couldn’t get away.” Jude shamefully spoke to the floor and Zero felt his heart breaking a little. He shook his head to try and dispel Jude’s guilt but then realised Jude was refusing to look at him so wouldn’t see. Slowly, he used his hand to close the distance between them and rested it on top of Jude’s still clenched knuckle. 

“I wouldn’t have wanted you in there.” Zero told him and it was true. For every moment he had spent wishing Jude would come and visit him he had spent another hoping Jude never stepped anywhere near the hellish place. 

“I missed you too.” Still, Jude refused to look at Zero. With a small smile at hearing those wonderful words, Zero reached out his unoccupied hand and grasped Jude’s chin gently between his fingers. Under Zero’s guidance, Jude turned his head and finally met Zero’s eyes. 

“I love you, stupid.” Zero whispered, echoing the first time he had said those words to Jude, little under a year ago. He had been cleaning up Jude’s face after one of Oscar’s latest outbursts and Jude kept talking about how unlovable he was. Zero had to prove him wrong. 

Closing the distance between them, Zero brushed his lips against Jude’s. Not the passionate, earth shattering kisses they were used to but a kiss that said I am here, I am with you, you are not alone. Jude’s warm breath blew over Zero’s face as they pressed their foreheads together so that Zero felt, more than heard, Jude’s next words. 

“I love you too.”


End file.
